


oolong, coffee, chai

by thepensword



Series: tumble taz [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, That's it, all of my stories have characters drinking tea and being angsty what's with that, also, also side note what is it with me and tea????, and how you learn to move on, davenport is Dad, it's short it's simple i'm tired goodnight, they sit there and drink hot beverages and talk about forgetting and remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 11:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15994607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: “Before all this, I used to drink oolong. Then I forgot, and so I started drinking coffee. Now I remember both and I don’t know what to do.” His hands tighten around the mug. “How do you live with that?”





	oolong, coffee, chai

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Three cups of coffee wasn’t good enough."
> 
> i haven't written in two weeks and i didn't sleep last night and it's after midnight and there's a hurricane outside here just take it

Magnus is in the kitchen and he’s thinking about the lives he’s led.

This happens sometimes, perhaps more often then he’d admit to anyone. But the thing about remembering after so long forgetting is that sometimes it’s too many memories for the mind to handle. Sometimes remembering feels like going mad.

Magnus stares down at his coffee cup. It’s funny, he’d meant to make tea. Old habits die hard, he supposes—then he remembers the tea is an older habit, but the coffee had felt like an old habit, but—

“Magnus,” says Davenport. It hurts that the sound of his voice is still a surprise. Magnus turns and there he is, standing in the doorway, spine straight and eyes sharp with wit. He’d missed him, Magnus thinks. He hadn’t known it but he’d missed his captain.

“Mm,” says Magnus. He swirls the coffee around in the mug and watches the steam rise off of it in fascinating swirls. It’s still too hot to drink.

Davenport crosses the room, fine leather boots tapping footsteps across the floor. There’s the scraping of the chair across the tile and then he’s sitting down at the table and placing small, wiry hands atop Magnus’ large, calloused ones. “Magnus,” says Davenport. His voice is patient, but commanding, even if it’s not as sure as perhaps it once was. “What’s wrong?”

Magnus sighs. This is hard to talk about but he thinks with Davenport it will be the easiest, because Davenport understands the most out of anyone. (Taako, too, might understand, but Taako by his very nature has blocked this subject of conversation from his mind as best he can.) 

“When I was at Raven’s Roost,” says Magnus, and he feels the minute stiffening of Davenport’s fingers, “I was happy. And that was my life. I didn’t remember my past very well but that didn’t matter because I was happy. But sometimes….”

The coffee has stopped steaming. Magnus brings it too his lips and takes a sip; it’s bitter, probably overbrewed, and he grimaces at the taste. Julia used to like hers with milk, though, so afterwards, he’d only drinken it black to ward off the bittersweet and painful memories of a blissful life lost. 

“Sometimes I’d get confused,” says Magnus. “Like, sometimes I’d have a thought, and that thought would be static, and it would sort of...stun me. I’d get stuck. So I’d go into the kitchen and make a cup of coffee. When it was really bad, I’d make another, and then another.”

Davenport’s thumb is tracing light circles over the back of Magnus’ hand. It’s a small gesture, but a comforting one. He remembers this from the century; Davenport was their captain, and kept himself removed, and was resistant to touch, but he’d be just tactile enough when any of them needed it. By the end, he’d hug Magnus back with full strength.

It hurts to think that after just a decade, they might be back at square one.

“Then after—after Kalen, after the, um.” Magnus swallows thickly and bites back the emotions that swell in his throat. Not now. He’s not going to cry. Not here, not now, not again. “Well. The static was worse than ever because I remembered being happy but I didn’t remember the before and now that I’d lost my home the before started to matter and I was so lost that—” he laughs, dry and bitter, “well, three cups of coffee wasn’t good enough.”

Davenport is silent. His thumb pauses it’s circular motion for just a moment before his hand slides up Magnus’ arm to rest just below his shoulder. “I know,” says Davenport, and, well, Magnus supposes he does.

“Before all this, I used to drink oolong. Then I forgot, and so I started drinking coffee. Now I remember both and I don’t know what to do.” His hands tighten around the mug. “How do you live with that?”

Davenport stands. His chair scrapes again as he pushes it back and Magnus watches, confused, as he crosses to the fantasy refrigerator and pulls out a carton of milk. He pours two cups of it into a pan and sets it on the stovetop to boil as he moves to grab a tin of looseleaf tea from the cabinet. The kitchen is dead silent as he scoops it into the milk and then pours it into two mugs through a strainer. He brings the tin with him as he sets the mugs on the table.

_ Masala Chai,  _ says the tin.

“You live with it by going forward,” says Davenport. “Oolong was for the century. Coffee was for the decade. Well, we’ve changed from who we were, and so maybe our habits have to change, too.”

Magnus sips the tea. It’s good; a little bit spicy and a little bit sweet. It’s comforting, too. It tastes like a home might.

“It doesn’t do well to dwell on what was and what could have been,” Davenport continues. “We all have to learn to move on.”

Magnus nods. He sips the tea. He nods again. Then he rises so that both he and Davenport are standing, before kneeling so that their faces are on level. “Permission to hug, Cap’nport?” he asks.

“Permission granted, Burnsides,” says Davenport, mustache twitching just slightly with a warm, crooked smile. (It had taken  _ years  _ to get that smile out of him—a little bit fond and a little bit amused—and Magnus is glad to see that things aren’t so damaged as to take that away again.)

They hold each other for a long time.

When they’re through, they sit back down and sip their chai and do no forget their histories; after all, there has already been far too much forgetting. Instead, they think about the past and move on to the future.

Forgetting is impossible and heavy with regret, but letting go is something else entirely. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry that angst is my default it's bc my muse is a goblin
> 
> my tumblr is [here](https://thepensword.tumblr.com), my twitter is [here](https://twitter.com/thepensw0rd), the comment box is below. thanks for reading! goodnight.


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